With a pager, the reception of a predetermined radio signal typically activates an audible and/or visual alarm to indicate that the person calling the pager should make a call to a predetermined telephone number to receive a message. In the alternative, the pager may have the capability to receive an incoming message that is displayed on the pager. This message communicates a predefined amount of information which may include the telephone number of a calling party. Unfortunately, the pager normally has a telephone number different from that associated with the telephone set of the called party. As a result, a calling party must dial two different telephone numbers, the first associated with the called party's telephone set and then, if the called party does not answer, dial a second number to alert the called party via his/her pager. If the second number is dialed, the calling party must also wait for a return call from the called party since the pager does not provide two-way communication capability. These operations often result in a considerable number of telephone calls where the two individuals periodically try to contact one another and fail because the other person is unavailable.
One solution to this problem is the use of a cellular telephone. However, cellular telephones are expensive in initial cost and expensive to use because of the cost for each telephone call. Further, there are many environments such as a hospital, manufacturing, education or general office environments where cellular telephones cannot be employed because of the background electrical noise or electromagnetic shielding of these environments.
U.S. Pat. No. 5,311,570 discloses a communication switching system that responds to an incoming call to a called party by signaling the pager as well as the telephone set associated with the called number of the incoming call. The pager is provided with the capability to signal the communication system that the called party will shortly answer the call via a telephone set. The called party then goes to any telephone set connected to the communication system, dials an identification code, and the communication system connects the incoming call to that telephone set. This disclosed system provides the partial solution to the problem; however, it still requires the called party to physically enter an identification code. Published European Patent Office Patent Application EP536949 discloses a system that directs an incoming call to the telephone set nearest the pager. The problem with this solution is that as the user of the pager walks through a business setting, the user's telephone calls are forwarded to all telephones passed by the user.
It is an object of this invention to provide a pager that interacts with a telecommunication switching system so that a user of the pager can select the telephone terminal to which the user's incoming calls will be transferred.